DEEP-IN, also known as Directed Energy Propulsion for Interstellar Exploration, is a

spaceflight Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly objects, usually spacecraft, into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such ...

propulsion Propulsion is the generation of force by any combination of pushing or pulling to modify the translational motion of an object, which is typically a rigid body (or an articulated rigid body) but may also concern a fluid. The term is derived from ...

concept that uses photonic laser propulsion with beamed power to propel a spacecraft in deep space. The concept was originally conceived by Professor Philip Lubin of the

University of California Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers college, UCSB joined ...

's Physics Department. Lubin is developing it under the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program. DEEP-IN is notable as the first NASA-backed photonic laser propulsion concept. It is heavily derived from DE-STAR, a planetary defense satellite concept previously developed by Lubin, in which he proposes using directed energy from lasers to vaporize or knock off course destructive asteroids headed for Earth. The system is scalable and modular, so that gradually larger objects can be propelled into space at relativistic speeds (speeds that are a significant fraction of the speed of light) with increasingly powerful lasers. Currently, research models suggest that using this technology, a satellite with a mass of could reach

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

in 3 days, a significantly shorter time than the current transit time. Additionally, a more massive crewed spacecraft, such as the

Orion spacecraft Orion (Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle or Orion MPCV) is a partially reusable crewed spacecraft used in NASA's Artemis program. The spacecraft consists of a Crew Module (CM) space capsule designed by Lockheed Martin that is paired with a Eu ...

, could reach Mars in one month, compared to the traditional requirement of at least 5 months. However, News Ledge notes that this short transfer time would require a second array of lasers already existing on Mars to slow vehicles down for Mars orbital insertion.

Technology

DEEP-IN would use an array of small lasers to focus a stream of photons onto reflectors on spacecraft, eliminating the need for spacecraft to carry propellant and therefore significantly lowering their mass. Photon momentum would be translated to the spacecraft, and reflectors enable a theoretical twofold increase in momentum transfer compared to a

blackbody A black body or blackbody is an idealized physical body that absorbs all incident electromagnetic radiation, regardless of frequency or angle of incidence. The radiation emitted by a black body in thermal equilibrium with its environment is ...

surface. The project anticipates it could carry

femtosatellites A small satellite, miniaturized satellite, or smallsat is a satellite of low mass and size, usually under . While all such satellites can be referred to as "small", different classifications are used to categorize them based on mass. Satellites c ...

weighing grams at approximately 0.25 times the speed of light, and still have significant maximum speed on larger spacecraft.

Funding

Lubin has been furthering this concept under two grants to date from the

NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC), formerly NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC), is a NASA program for development of far reaching, long term advanced concepts by "creating breakthroughs, radically better or entirely new aerospa ...

- a Phase 1 grant in 2015 of $100,000, and a Phase 2 grant in 2016 of US$500,000.

References

{{reflist Photonics Spacecraft propulsion Interstellar travel NASA